The ASU men’s basketball team heads to the Pac-10 Tournament in a similar place that it was two years ago in 2007.
That team lost in the first round of the tournament to USC and was left out of the NCAA Tournament field on Selection Sunday. The players that went through that don’t want to experience being left out again.
“It sucked,” senior guard Derek Glasser said of that year. “There is nothing worse than hearing all the teams go by, getting called, that you feel like you are better than or beat ... and you don’t.”
The players know that if they keep winning, the selection committee has to take them. The Sun Devils will most likely be out if they don’t win on Thursday.
“If we get to the [Pac-10] Championship [Game], I think we are for sure in,” Glasser said. “If we only get one win, I think we will be sitting there on Sunday like [my] sophomore year, hoping and praying.”
ASU junior guard Ty Abbott doesn’t want to leave any doubt in the mind of the committee.
“All wins — that is my gut feeling,” Abbott said. “We need to go and win the whole thing. We just want to make it that there is no question. We still have an opportunity to do that.”
Pac-10 on the rise
If you ask ASU coach Herb Sendek, the Pac-10 doesn’t deserve the negative attention and vibe that it keeps getting.
“Our league has improved tremendously,” Sendek said. “If you take a snapshot of the quality of play in our league now from where it was in November and December, our conference is improved.”
The improvement of the league can’t be shown, because ever since December, teams have only played conference games.
“In order to rely on that statement, you would have to sit down and watch the games,” Sendek said. “Our league has improved and grown tremendously. I think that bodes well for us on Selection Sunday. Part of what the committee will do is ‘when we watch this team play what do our eyes see?’ That has to count for something.”
But will the committee actually take the time to notice the improvement and ignore all the negative hype?
“I think they take their responsibilities seriously,” Sendek said. “They do an incredible amount of homework. They would be the first to tell you how challenging it is. There is so much balance, it is incredible.”
Time change
The Sun Devils will get a bit more time to prepare for their semifinal matchup if they are victorious on Thursday.
The Pac-10 conference announced on Tuesday that the game times of the night session on Thursday have been reversed. Instead of being the late game, ASU will take on Stanford at 7:10 p.m. Arizona time.
Washington and Oregon State will now be the late game, getting underway at 9:40 Arizona time.
“As the higher seed in the evening session, Arizona State earned the right to extra recovery time should it advance to Friday’s semifinal,” the Pac-10 said in a released statement.
Reach the reporter at andrew.gruman@asu.edu
